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Yesterday was the annual Idiotarod, which is both loved and hated by locals. We hear that this year the head honchos were tossing non-competitors out of the checkpoints, this coupled with the amount of jocks tackling people leads us to believe that this (sadly) may have been the last good run. There have also been a ton of complaints about the competitors and organizers littering the streets, leaving their paths trashed with no clean-up effort.
Mayo balloons, flour, rotten fish and various condiments were used by teams, but not everyone played dirty. Congrats to Team Danger Zone (who we hear didn't use any unsavory tactics) for taking home the trophy! (See their race documented here.)
Photo by Jake Dobkin
Photo by Agaton Strom
Photo via It's Not That Far's Flickr.
More photos and our slideshow after the jump. There's also some video floating around, including this clip from a grumpy spectator in his apartment (subtitled "blah blah blah idiots"...clever!), but mostly there's just shaky cam footage a la Cloverfield. If you have some better video send it over.
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Very gay.
Wah! Wah! I need attention!
There are about 10 carts left behind in the Columbia Street area.
Please never come back here, any of you rude, ignorant assholes who have zero respect for the city...
If this was to raise money or for a cause, one might be willing to put up with all of this, but what is the point? to get drunk in costumes???
there are people in this city starving and these assholes throw food at one another... amazing how dumb we are getting that this is even relevant for even Gothamist to cover...
Yeah. This doesn't seem like something any native New Yorkers would do. I wouldn't do anything that would embarrass my family.
blah balh & RehR ya'll curmudgeons are booooring.
this would remain a fun spontaneous silly for silly sake event if they didn't leave such garbage in their wake. Just clean up your mess! I have a trail of vermin food rotting on my street that isn't going anywhere soon. I was all excited to watch this event and I have always thought it was hilarious and fun, but now I'm stepping over piles of rotten food just to get out the door. Just blegh...
I can't tell if these people are idiots or retards.
1. it was a fun event
2. its nyc. ever heard of garbage?
3. haters would complain even if we were out there feeding the homeless or volunteering for meals on wheels- fact: people love to hate and be spoilsports. its human nature.
also:
I can't help but think that the same people that are complaining about their streets being littered are the very ones who also speak out about the "Disneyfication" of NYC, and whom have probably been overheard saying things like "I moved to Red Hook to escape the banality that has become NYC; its just more edgy and artistic here!"
If you're that obsessed with pristine streets, maybe NYC isn't the place for you? Try, perhaps, San Francisco?
Also:
I can't help but think that the same people that are complaining about their streets being littered are the very ones who also speak out about the "Disneyfication" of NYC, and whom have probably been overheard saying things like "I moved to Red Hook to escape the banality that has become NYC; its just more edgy and artistic here!"
If you're that obsessed with pristine streets, maybe NYC isn't the place for you? Try, perhaps, San Francisco?
Shut up, pinko.
Haters? The people that participate in Intiotarod only care about themselves. Why should anyone permit this event when Critical Mass keeps on getting harassed by the NYPD?
Rho saw your bit on the flickr page... which makes me think that your clean up crew was a bit wasted. There are about 10 carts on Hicks still. all along Columbia eggs and smashed glass.
All for fun, but we don't get frat boys puking, as you wrote, down here much. and there are tons of events similar to this at Moonshine and we really don't get people with such disregard for the city. Have the race, drink your beer, but why throw food? and take your crap home with you.
Seems to me, that this event has evolved from fun to a drunken riot. just read that moron barbeque on the carts page.
Rho saw your bit on the flickr page... which makes me think that your clean up crew was a bit wasted. There are about 10 carts on Hicks still. all along Columbia eggs and smashed glass.
All for fun, but we don't get frat boys puking, as you wrote, down here much. and there are tons of events similar to this at Moonshine and we really don't get people with such disregard for the city. Have the race, drink your beer, but why throw food? and take your crap home with you.
Seems to me, that this event has evolved from fun to a drunken riot. just read that moron barbeque on the carts page.
I saw a bunch of participants walking north on Court St. in Cobble Hill and none of them were walking with their carts. So basically, they dumped their carts/garbage in Red Hook and walked to Boro Hall station to take the train back to Manhattan. Who gives a f***, right, it's just Brooklyn. Probably "Team Danger Zone" was one of the few that took their F-15 cart home because of the work that went into it.
Yeah it can be fun, but what about the garbage left behind where people live & work ? Maybe twenty years ago it wouldn't matter, but today people take a little more pride in the appearance of their streets in this boro. Actually, twenty years ago these "transplants" wouldn't have the balls to enter Red Hook or even live in this city.
Anyway, I'm glad "Team Danger Zone" won because they showed respect for the neighborhoods they passed through, unlike the others. Their F-15 cart was cool as well.
how bout I leave garbage where you live?
or, puncture your bike tires because that's what vandalism is. and, that's what you people did.
How bout showing some goodwill to the neighborhood and get a clean up crew.
you know it's a weekend and the garbage will be there till monday.
interesting. most of the carts were hauled off last night...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhodamine/2221618881/
I can name some of them cause they where dumb enough to keep the signage... Double dare, Victoria Secret, one that was covered in a rainbow, a tiki theme... etc, thats just off the top of my head.
as I said you guys must have been wasted when you did your clean up.
Hey rho, do you still have that rental truck ? Maybe you could pick up the rest.
"readhookreject":
"you guys"? i was just there helping out, as an uninvolved bystander (not a part of any team or overseeing group). thats right. i just went, hung around, and helped out cause it was fun, plain and simple. thats how i ended up there to take so many photos.
if you care so much about your community, perhaps instead of sitting behind your computer and complaining on the internet (serious business that it is), you could go out and clean up one of the four (out of 150 or so carts involved, so thats roughly less than 3% of the total carts) that you saw? put all that talk into walk, and leave your community a little better for the 10 minutes of effort?
though im sure youll just tell me that "its not your responsibility" to do that sort of thing, which is a typical response of folks that resort to the well-intentioned-but-lazy-and-effectively-pointless-complaining -online-about-other-people's-fun reactions that yove espoused. i mean, for example, its not my responsibility to keep WNYC on the air, but i send them a donation every year, you know? pitch in! i, myself, pushed many more than 4 carts far out of your neighborhood, and i live far away in bushwick. i mean, really. but don't hesitate to implement some of your cleanup/neighborhood-respect ideas! i mean, involvement is the best way to positively steer public events, yeah?
...i mean, that is, unless youre just one of those sorts of folks that likes to whine and complain online and never actually does anything about it in real-time.
Oh, seriously. The Idiotarod organizers aren't babysitters. They're volunteers trying to facilitate a good time. They set up the checkpoints and get the permits and rely on the participants to not be dickheads. And then they get Jello-shots dumped on their heads and flour bombs lobbed at them and yell at drunk people to clean up after themselves. How are they responsible for the dumbfucks who abandon their carts to run home and flickr their pictures? It sucks that property was damaged and some participants were uncool, that's not what the Idiotarod is for, it really isn't. It's a fun, silly, ridiculous exercise in which teams dress up, race shopping carts across the city, sabotage one another and often drink too much. Some people take it too far and use it as an excuse for excess. And because it's supposed to be fun, there isn't really a penalty for that. If the Idiotarod has a fatal flaw, it's that it relies on the participants to use their best judgement. This year, not all the carts were down with that. But many, many were and a good time was had. Asking people to take responsibility for themselves is dicey and not everyone is interested. That's a fact and the Idiotarod is proof on a large scale. Fun and democracy are both fraught with douchebags.
rho- let me guess. not on the the high school debate team, right.
so your answer is, that the nabes you ( ohh wait your just an apologist not actually involved) roll into should be trashed in the name of fun, and then leave it for the locals to pitch in, in the name of fun, and clean up after the idiots?
I picked up a smashed beer bottle outside my door, call me in.
as for the eggs mashed into the sidewalk, yeah I didn't get out the bucket and hot water and scrub that up, sorry. call me indifferent. call me part of the problem.
The point is here, that there are some people who do have fun, and keep it clean. They have basic boundaries of respect and decency. Then there are others. and sadly there are even more who become assholes in mobs.
I was walking the dog, around 4pm and there where some people not involved, they just happen to live here walking towards Union, and two morons came running by and sprayed them with mustard outside the bus stop on Columbia... That's around the time my opinion of this event started to turn.
fun is fun, aggro isn't .
anyway...
This is the main point:
there are some people who do have fun, and keep it clean. They have basic boundaries of respect and decency. Then there are others.
most of the participants were not happy with the food being thrown & the powder & the mess. the organizers did try to make them clean up. old-timers noticed that this year was more aggressive & just plain mean. hopefully the whole nature of the event will change next year.
also, we were going to keep our cart for next year but when we got to the end we were told by organizers & others that the police wanted everyone to abandon their cart on that street. so i apologize for leaving my cart but i was trying to be respectful by actually doing what i was told.
such a gross event. i went a few years ago to watch my friend race and the entire thing turned into a disgusting food fight. litter everywhere, people puking, innocent bystanders getting caught in the middle of flying condiments.
there's nothing redeeming about the Idiotarod. it's strayed far from its creators original intent and it should be retired.
Santa Con = zilla, Idiotarod = weenie
ok everybody, let's just sit at home in the silence and knit sweaters, shall we?
I would just like to add that while our cart was left behind, we completely cleaned out the cart and left it next to an industrial dumpster in front of a construction site.
Remember Senior Day in high school at the end of the year where the graduating seniors would wreak havoc on the freshman with Super Squirters full of bleach and piss and corner them in the bathroom with cans of shaving cream and give wedgies? Was it all of the seniors? No, just the unimaginative ones. What did the school administration do? Issued stern warnings. Unenforceable, since the seniors were beyond punishment. So they drive around the cars they inherited when their Grandma went to the nursing home swigging OE from paper bags, egging the unawares and high-fiving. And then someday, the bitter eggees can inappropriately exact their imagined revenge on other nerds that won't fight back. Idiatarod.
Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Someone is perturbed by broken glass, smashed eggs and abandoned shopping carts?
That could be any block in New York City on any given day, for pete's sake! God forbid, any block during Halloween.
Like Halloween, its one day a year. I say let the kids have their fun. It seems like they at least made some sort of concerted effort to clean up, and were not totally irresponsible, which is more than can be said for the Halloween antics, or as someone above mentioned, rowdy high school seniors. Even more, perhaps, than can be said for the City's clean-up efforts after any large parade.
The whiners on here never cease to amaze me. People could literally be shitting golden bricks in the street and someone would complain about it. It's stuff like the Idiotarod that makes New York City New York City. I say if you don't like it, go back to Kansas or wherever it is you moved here from.
ugh....white people...
(in my best J.Lo on SNL voice)
Maybe the organizers can do something about next year's event like reducing the number of participants (maybe 50 cart teams max.), making the route shorter, increasing the number of people involved in cleaning, having more "observers", etc. They now know that this event will likely attract assholes again next year, so more planning & work will be required to prevent something worse from happening during the next one.